


Dream in Red, Wake in White

by DeepSpaceNovocaine



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Remembering past trauma, Trauma, Why do I torment my OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 22:58:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14628801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeepSpaceNovocaine/pseuds/DeepSpaceNovocaine
Summary: Magic can't help everything. Though try as Asra's magic does, and work as well as it has, he can't help what his apprentice's body remembers. He's riddled with scars all over his body, certain smells and sights and souds set his mind off with no reason, and Rin can't get any answers from Asra, not that that's much of a surprise anymore.He was content with not knowing, content with knowing that he'll learn in due time.. Until his mind loses its patience and decides it wants to show him NOW.





	Dream in Red, Wake in White

**Author's Note:**

> Kay so I just started The Arcana like a week ago and spent like $14 on it because Asra owns my ass and my poor boy Rin's as well. I should not be an adult.

The smell of burning and rotting flesh sets his mind spinning, and before he knows what's going on, he's running.

  
Going nowhere, to no one, Rin has no idea where he even is. All around him is flame and ash, his feet burning and head aching. The only sounds in this personal Hell are the shouts and cries of people dying, unseen structures crumbling, hate-filled shouts telling him that he's "better off dead."

  
The worst part is that it sounds like his own voice. The voice morphs into dozens upon dozens of people shouting at him before he trips on something unseen, and he's on the ground in an instant, covered in black and trying to avoid the severed limbs of innocents.

  
How does he know they're innocent? He doesn't know these people, right? But as far as he knows, no one deserves this kind of torment. It's always been an instinct for him, to treat others with greater respect than he does himself, but he's kind-of at a loss in that philosophy at the moment.

  
Looking at the ground, staring solidly at a once soft, feminine hand, now covered in ash, he tries to think. He tries to drown out all the noise and cries and static from souls of the tormented ghouls plaguing his mind, to remember exactly where this place is. Where is he? Where is his master? What the hell is going on?

  
Every time he tries to think of the place he's at, he tries for his memory, but that doesn't work out too well. If the ache in his head was a bit dull then, now it's come at him full force. He raises his hands to cover his brain, cover his ears, cover whatever he can that might help the pain go away. That might help this nightmare be done with. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think about what to do. What can he do?

  
Maybe he can cast a spell. He's gotten stronger with each growing day out of sheer force of will and practicing with his magic, maybe he can somehow ease everyone's pain? Or put them out of their misery, as much as he'd rather not be their executioner. Rin lowers his hands, writing out string after string of any and all incantations that he can remember off the top of his head that could possibly help the situation, and mutters them out loud. Nothing happens, and he continues, getting louder and louder at every pass at every syllable, squeezing his eyes shut and downright screaming, until he's sure he's not going to be able to speak for at least a year after this is all over.

  
"Hello, Rin."

 

An oddly familiar voice calling his name makes his eyes snap wide open and whip around to the source. The scene from before is gone- now he's in a pitch-black void, sitting on his knees in the inky blackness. He stands up- though he's not sure how- and manages a voice.

 

"Hello?"

 

His voice is immediately engulfed in the nothingness around him, as if he hadn't said anything at all. 

 

He turns to speak to the void once more, though his voice stifles in his throat when his eyes land upon a child. The child, whose face was once the same tone as his, was now burned to a crisp, covered in burns and red, impaled with several shards of wood and glass passing through their torso. Their irises have the same azure and violet hues as his, though an evil grin is plastered upon their face. He wants to say something to the child, but nothing will come out. 

 

"You left us."

 

The simple sentence leaves their lips without hesitation, without a hint of teasing.

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"You. Left. Us. Left us. Abandoned us." The child tilts their head, their neck crackling and popping grotesquely, their head now angled in an unnatural way. "You could have saved us. We could have lived and grew up together like we promised. But you survived, and forgot us."

 

The child disappears from his sight in a blink, and the next words he can hear is whispered into his ear. "You might as well have killed us." 

 

He jumps away from the spot he was standing, turning toward the voice, though nothing was there but the dark. 

 

"Won't you see what you did to our poor, unfortunate mother?" Comes the voice from behind him, and Rin reluctantly turns to see not only the child, but also a woman. The woman looks as the child does, covered in red and black, a thick, metal beam through her abdomen in place of wood and glass. Her once blonde hair is now stained the same as her skin, falling in waves over half of her face. She doesn't speak, only glares silently, holding her child's hand with her broken and grossly misshapen hand. Her blue gaze drills through his eyes, the message she provides ringing loudly: You did this.

 

This message is repeated out loud by the child. The child keeps chanting, and soon their voice is joined by more, and more, and more, until it becomes a roaring mess of human voices, screaming his sins at him until they're engrained into his very soul, and then he's falling.

 

* * *

 

He lands on his head, hitting the floorboards and waking him with a jolt and a scream. Asra, who'd clearly been awake, rushes over to the younger man, trying to calm down his attacks with gentle words before trying to hold him.

  
"Rin! Rin! Wake up! It's just a dream! Please wake up!" He desperately tries to keep the other's arms from fighting, pulling him in his lap and rocking, as Faust helps as much as she can by wrapping herself around a flailing ankle. He gives soft pecks to the younger's sweaty forehead and temple, whispering kind words and gentle reminders to help calm him down.

  
After an excruciatingly long period of time, the younger fully wakes from his nightmare and stops his fighting. Rin grips his master's night shirt and curls in on his chest, calming his breathing in time with Asra's gentle instruction. Faust slithers her way from his ankle to around his shoulders, her head tilting inquiringly.

  
Once his breathing has slowed down to a less startling pace, and his shaking has slowed as well, Asra picks the both of them up and makes his way down to the kitchen to make Rin some tea to calm down.

  
"What happened?" He wonders, gently placing the cup of tea down. "If you don't want to share, I won't push you.. But you've been rather... erratic, through most of tonight." He sits opposite of him, an equal look of concern and inquiry worrying his features. "I can gather you were having a rather vicious nightmare, but I'm willing to listen if you're wanting to talk about it."

 

Rin looks from his master to the cup of tea, chewing his bottom lip and thinking through his options. Eventually, he settles himself and takes a sip, then begins.

 

"Do you remember a few days ago when I got mistaken for a teenager again because I got into a fight with that weird lady down the street's raccoon for trying to take my pumpkin bread?"

 

The magician looked thoroughly confused, his familiar making her way from the table to her proud perch on his shoulder. "I... can't say that I do. I do remember you coming back to the shop with scratches on your face and half a loaf of bread, but I was unaware of any raccoon fighting."

 

"Yeah, I might have left that part out on purpose for my pride's sake," Rin continued, "but she asked me where my mother was after prying the overgrown rat off of me. I didn't have an answer for her, so I just walked off." He paused to drink more of the tea before continuing, his audience patiently waiting for him to continue. "I don't.. remember really anything past us meeting. I don't remember if I even have a mom, or a dad, or even siblings." Leaning his elbows on the table, threading his fingers together and setting his head on top, he stared into the wood grain in front of him, "I try to remember, but everything is just... white. A blur. My head starts pounding whenever I try to remember anyone." He lifts his eyes up to meet Asra's, "I think.. I think what I was dreaming of was the past."

 

Asra nods slowly, solemnly, leaning back in the chair, his face deep in thought. Resting his hands on the table and carefully choosing his next words, he looks at Rin across from him, "So, thinking about your family made you have such a terrible dream..?"

 

"I guess. But if that's what happens when I try to think of them..." Rin shivers, "I'd rather not think about them. I'd like to know where they came from, or who they are, but.. I don't want to go through that again. Not yet, anyway." He shakes his head, as if clearing the thoughts from his mind. Calmly, he reaches across the table to softly grasp one of Asra's hands, idly rubbing his thumb over the other's and focusing his eyes there, "Besides, I have you. I don't mind you being my only one." 

 

Looking up at Asra's slightly flustered expression, he smiled. "Faust, too, of course. But she's on a different level." Faust flicked her tongue at him, appreciating the slight praise and lightened atmosphere. Not wanting to be left out of the party, she slid her way down from Asra's shoulders and on their joined hands, wrapping herself around their arms where she could and gave an encouraging squeeze. 

 

Asra softly smiled at his familiar, and his companion. "I don't think I mind that, either."

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhhh,,, If you want me to write more about my sad boi let me know.


End file.
